


born under calico skies

by focacciabread



Series: calico skies [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not a lot tho, Pre-Relationship, and sometimes I actively went against what wikipedia told me, it's about learning each other, it's about learning their language as you learn them, like I just used wikipedia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:21:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26056387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/focacciabread/pseuds/focacciabread
Summary: Yusuf half expects the bite of steel for his efforts, or at least a jolt as the soldier pulls him back down into the dirt—instead, just a hand in his, warm and rough.“Yusuf,” he says, hand on his chest. “I am Yusuf Al-Kaysani.”Something sparks in the blue eyes across from him. “Nicolo di Genova.”Nicolo. Something familiar that has no reason to be.Or, in which Yusuf and Nicolo kill each other, learn each other, and long for each other, kind of in that order.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: calico skies [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1918177
Comments: 119
Kudos: 814





	born under calico skies

**Author's Note:**

> So this is just another like, how they transitioned from murdering each other to spooning in front of other people bc george costanza voice the enemies to lovers got to me
> 
> the title is of course from calico skies by Paul McCartney, don't listen to it while driving and think about this bc you will drift onto a rumble strip for like 5 whole seconds
> 
> I fucked around with the dream shit and made them learn languages wayyy too quickly but like, no gods no masters right
> 
> Also I am white from a christian background so super let me know if there's anything I should change about this

The sound of battle is the sound of the sea.

Men for waves, hoofbeats for thunder—liquid movement. Yusuf stands and does not stand according to the current, fights and holds back with the flow the fight. It has been waging for hours now, the sun sinking low and fat in the sky, casting long shadows onto the walls of the city behind him.

The Christian barbarians are ruthless, the rounded sounds of their language echoing above Yusuf’s head. The air is foggy with the stench of bodies and the mist of blood; Yusuf tries his best not to choke. Whether it is up to luck or faith that he is not one of the many bodies carpeting the ground, he cannot say.

He is feeling strangely alone when he locks eyes with a Christian soldier. Even from a distance, Yusuf can tell they’re blue and flinty—soulless. Something makes him spin towards the soldier, this particular one, scimitar arcing out before him. Whatever it is, it seems to have gripped the Christian as well—they both advance towards the other, the moving body of battle surrounding them.

Yusuf’s scimitar meets the other man’s sword with a harsh sound that resonates down his arm. Yusuf can see fury in the other man’s eyes and hopes intensely that he can see the same in Yusuf’s. No, not the same, more, worse, stronger, because this should not be Yusuf’s fight. The Christian aggressors believe they can demand Jerusalem from the people who have made it their home? That they can capture a city glowing with such wealth and culture under their sweaty thumb? The very idea renews Yusuf’s rage and it is with a wordless scream that the arc of his blade slices into the Christian’s abdomen, right below where his tunic boasts a blood-red cross.

Before Yusuf can even think about his victory, however, the other soldier forgoes the decent path of dying quietly and instead wrenches his sword back as well. As soon as Yusuf registers the movement, a pain like he’s never felt bursts through the middle of his chest. Hot on its heels is a growing coldness radiating from the entry wound, pulsing to his legs and arms, fingers and toes. It goes until his body is entirely numb.

 _Ah,_ Yusuf thinks, _so this is what death feels like._

As his thoughts get foggy and his vision blackens, Yusuf feels a stab of pride that, if he perishes on this battlefield, at least he did so making certain there would be one less Christian trampling over the walls of his city, one more to feed the birds.

***

He wakes from troubled dreams with a gasp. For a moment, Yusuf is unsure of where he is—then he remembers. Heat, steel, blood. Death, even. His hand shoots to his chest. His clothing is torn and bloody, yes, but his skin and bone are whole.

A dream? It would not be the first time a man was struck down on the battlefield with visions, but the memory of the pain is too real to be any voice from above. It’s entirely gone now though, the pain—all throughout his body, in fact. As he struggles to stand again, Yusuf notices even older wounds on his hands and arms are healed, vanished. Is this the afterlife after all, healed of every ill?

He glances around him; no, paradise this is not. The fallen bodies of his brothers and their enemies lay strewn across the earth, vultures making their ungraceful descent to pluck at their meat. The sky is dark now, the only light he can see cast from torches in the city behind him. As he listens closely, Yusuf can hear the same barbaric vowels he did in the battlefield echoing from behind its walls. The city has fallen, then.

Waves of rage and grief crash together within him at once—if this city of stone and mortar can fall so easily to cruel hands, why has he remained upright?

A sound from his side. Yusuf turns his head, expecting to see a particularly opportunistic vulture but instead catches sight of a body, moving. It’s the same man from earlier, the one he lost and won a fight against. This man is currently struggling to his feet, his eyes scowling up at Yusuf.

The glance is all the warning Yusuf gets before the other man lunges.

They both go down scrabbling. Yusuf hits the ground hard, breath whooshing out of him. His scimitar lies somewhere in the dirt, so he reaches for the knife strapped to his leg and buries it in the man’s back with little ceremony. Yusuf feels him jolt and cry out in pain against his own body and rolls away, but not quickly enough to dodge the rock his enemy brings down.

It goes on like this for an unknowable period of time—the sun could circle the earth a thousand times, or it could be one endless night. Yusuf loses himself in the pain and the not pain, the slicing and stabbing and crushing and healing. The man he’s fighting seems to have the same vicious fury that Yusuf feels boiling in his belly. How dare he? How dare he, when Yusuf was risen from the dead to kill him? Of course, the question remains: why is the other soldier rising from the dirt as well?

His opponent is formidable; they seem to trade deaths at an equal rate. An eye for an eye, a knife for a sword, blood for blood. They dance, almost, pulling closer and apart—no music except the clash of metal and their grunting voices. Yusuf can’t tell if any of the sounds falling from the other man’s mouth are actual words or just expressions of pain and anger—language is a tricky beast that way. Either way, there is nothing to understand from the other man except the contempt in his eyes.

It goes, and goes, and goes, until, suddenly, it doesn’t.

Yusuf can’t say what it is exactly, that makes it stop—what makes him stop. The heat, maybe, of the finally rising sun—something makes him realize the well that once held his rage is now dry.

Whatever it is, the next time they both complete the cycle of death and rebirth, Yusuf waits before striking. He breathes hard and deep as he watches the other soldier claw at the dirt, working his way up to his feet. Yusuf’s knife is still sticking out of his back.

It’s an active decision, sticking out his hand towards the infidel soldier in peace. For his hand, Yusuf receives a blank stare.

“I tire of hurting you,” Yusuf says, and sighs when the man’s eyes don’t change—it was an assumption to think that his Arabic would be understood. There are precious few languages he knows more than phrases in, with his luck, his soldier would be native to none of them. Still, he leans further down with his hand extended.

Yusuf half expects the bite of steel for his efforts, or at least a jolt as the soldier pulls him back down into the dirt—instead, just a hand in his, warm and rough. He tries not to let his surprise show on his face as he hauls the other man to his feet.

Well, they have to start somewhere. “Yusuf,” he says, handoff his chest. “I am Yusuf Al-Kaysani.”

Something sparks in the blue eyes across from him. “Nicolo di Genova.”

Nicolo. Something familiar that has no reason to be. Yusuf has met some Italians, yes, many people come to Jerusalem—or, came, he supposes—but the name from Nicolo’s lips brings to mind the flashes he saw while dying.

“Nicolo,” Yusuf says, tasting it. The man in question grimaces at his accent, startling a laugh from Yusuf. The outburst jolts the both of them, but raised brows are replaced with cleared expressions. “Nicolo, Nicolo—Italian?”

“Si,” Nicolo says, surprised. He follows it with a sentence Yusuf cannot catch the whole of, but he understands the meaning of it well enough— _do you speak it?_ He shakes his head.

“No, not—well.” Nicolo makes a noise that sounds like it means _that’s a shame._

They stand, at something of a stalemate. It’s odd to have a name for him, the other half of what seemed like an endless battle. It’s odd that he now has Yusuf’s name as well. It seems like both too much and precious little.

Yusuf racks his brain for the few phrases he knows in this man’s language. From his knowledge of it, Italian seems to be more of a language of lovers and poets—not that Yusuf isn’t either of those. He fancies himself both, just not quite in these circumstances.

“You…cannot die,” Nicolo says, saving him from mangling a verse. Maybe this other man he’s found secretly does have a heart. “Why?”

“Why can you not?” Yusuf says, turning the language used on him around to Nicolo.

Nicolo shrugs, looking at once confused, angry, exhausted. He rubs a hand down his face. Yusuf, struck suddenly by the ridiculousness of the situation, begins to laugh.

“Nothing,” he says to Nicolo’s expression. Trying to explain himself without the tools he ought to have, he gestures between Nicolo and himself, then to the environment at large, and then breaks down again into something that might be called laughter in a language that neither of them speak.

Nicolo doesn’t exactly laugh along with him, but the crease in his brow Yusuf was beginning to think was permanent smooths out some, leaving his expression as something open. Something that might be a smile, given a little more time. Yusuf finds that he wants to coax out a full smile from this man almost as much as he still wants to kill him—the two wants balance each other out to become more helpless laughter.

“Well,” Yusuf says, after the episode has finally abandoned him. “What the fuck are we going to do now.” It’s in Arabic, but Nicolo seems to understand his hopelessness just the same.

It takes hours, but eventually they land on something that approximates communication and develop a plan. It’s not good, but for the lack of bridge between them and the fact that they were killing each other mere hours ago, it’s not quite bad either. It is this: they, wary of the city’s response to their shared gift, will travel together to Cairo until they have an answer to the deathless question or until one of them manages to kill the other for good. The last part is unspoken and perhaps would be a solution to the first, but neither of them acknowledge it.

After shedding the heavier aspects of their armor and completing the grisly task of replacing their ruined garments, they are on their way.

Walking off the battlefield is a trial, stepping over the fallen bodies as they try to make their way to the edge of it. It’s odd; despite dying several times himself, the view of sprawled and bloody corpses still makes Yusuf slightly sick. Man should not be reduced so.

A low groaning sound emits from one of the piles of limbs as they pass slowly by. Someone not quite dead yet, then, buried in a fleshy tomb. Before Yusuf can say a word about the poor bastard’s fate, Nicolo is crouching down and reaching into the mass.

He draws out a man—Christian, by the looks of his skin and clothing—seemingly young enough to not quite have hair on his chin. His clothing is stained red beyond saving, and his body seems to have fared no better. Yusuf feels the phantom pain of his wounds with an ache.

Nicolo is muttering something, both too low and too quickly for Yusuf to understand any piece of it, but it must be a blessing of some sort—a prayer for the dead. The dying soldier is so far gone he doesn’t even seem to notice the other man crouched beside him, and soon he, like the countless other bodies littering the battlefield, is still.

Nicolo rocks back on his heels, his eyes shut tightly, still muttering. Yusuf watches—something about this man is working its way under his skin. When at last Nicolo opens his eyes, Yusuf is ready to help him to his feet again. It’s wordless, like many of the things between them must be, but it is not without meaning.

As he stands, Nicolo looks almost as though he might be ill. Yusuf watches his eyes dart across the field, the heaps of bodies. He almost wants to tell this Christian soldier that he could spend the rest of his life issuing blessings and still fall short of the amount of men his army has cut down. He doesn’t, if only because he does not have the words to do so.

Nicolo says something much too quickly for Yusuf to understand it and looks at him with imploring eyes. When Yusuf shakes his head slowly, Nicolo tries again, slower. This time, Yusuf can work out the word for something that he thinks he knows from hearing Christian speech—repent.

Yusuf looks at him. Is this—an apology? After driving his sword through Yusuf’s chest? This is a very odd man he has found, it seems.

“No,” is his simple response. Nicolo, miraculously, seems to understand and hangs his head, falling back into step behind Yusuf.

They walk on.

***

By the time night is falling again, they have managed to put a significant distance between themselves and the blood of the battlefield. Yusuf does not particularly relish sleeping on the hard ground with only a Christian to watch over him, but the healing has apparently not made them completely inhuman; his stomach pangs with hunger and he feels the grittiness of exhaustion even as he blinks his eyes free of it.

Under the cover of a small tree, Yusuf sits down heavily. Eventually, they will suffer due to their lack of supplies—although Yusuf wonders if they will be resurrected from even death by starvation. It is not something he wants to dwell on.

Yusuf looks up at a noise from Nicolo, who is still standing. “What?”

Nicolo mimes eating and then says a word that must be _food_ and then looks questioningly towards Yusuf. Unsure of what the question is, he squints and shakes his head. Nicolo nods and then—is off.

“What—Nicolo!” Yusuf calls after his retreating back, but Nicolo merely turns halfway around and says something Yusuf doesn’t understand over his shoulder. The tone of it sounds—Yusuf does not know. He has left his sword.

Yusuf sighs and lets his head fall back against the tree. If the man wants to wander off into the night, Yusuf is not going to stop him. At least this means his worries about being slain in his sleep will hopefully amount to nothing.

He cannot tell how long it has been before his eyes snap open to the sound of someone approaching. The sky is still dark, but Yusuf sees the distant outline of a man. He bristles before he recognizes it as Nicolo. What a long, strange day it has been, that the sight of a Christian man settles his hackles back down.

He is carrying something, Nicolo, a cloth bag that seems to have a heft to it. Perhaps it would be wise to get to his feet to greet him after this abrupt departure and return, but Yusuf is simply too exhausted to give it much real thought. He waits until Nicolo is close before speaking in exhausted Arabic. “What is this, Nicolo.”

In lieu of an answer, Nicolo opens the pack and reveals it to be filled with—food. Yusuf can feel himself gaping, first at the bag, then at Nicolo, who now looks a little sheepish.

“What?” Yusuf says—his knowledge of that particular Italian word is proving very useful today—as Nicolo tries to hand him the satchel. Nicolo nods toward him and mimes eating it, saying something Yusuf can’t understand. “How—where did you get this?”

“Ah,” Nicolo says, clearly looking for digestible words. “There are—Christians,” he says, gesturing to the destroyed cross on his chest for clarity, and then over his shoulder.

“Shit,” Yusuf says, jolted from his exhaustion by the terrifying idea of Christian soldiers close by. He may not be able to die, but he still shudders to think what will happen to him at an army’s hand. He starts to rise to his feet, but it stopped by Nicolo’s hands gentle on his wrists. It’s a confusing enough gesture that he stops.

“No,” Nicolo says. “Not close. I—” He mimes gathering the pack into his arms and then puts a finger to his lips. Yusuf stares at him blankly for a moment, before:

“You _stole_ this?” His affronted tone seems to transcend language, as Nicolo’s eyes brighten and he nods. “You…are a very strange Christian.,” Yusuf says, but accepts the food. It is nothing more than black bread and water, but it will fill his stomach. He takes some and offers it back to Nicolo, who shakes his head. Yusuf shrugs—perhaps the man is a devout Catholic after all.

The silence that hangs in the air is not oppressive, but it is slightly uncomfortable to Yusuf, who is used to speaking with his mouth and spirit full. Talking with people he will never see again. It is too much to bear silently.

“Do you want to hear about the people you killed?” Yusuf asks in Arabic to a drooping eyed Nicolo. He waves off the other man’s confused look and continues. “I know it was not exactly all you, but I am sure you will not blame me for holding this momentary grudge.”

Nicolo’s furrowed brow smooths out a bit as he realizes Yusuf is mostly speaking to himself and he waves for him to continue.

“Oh, thank you,” Yusuf says, hand to his chest, then laughs a bit. “A strange pair we make, hm? If only you could understand me; you could not ask for a better man to be traversing the country with. I’ll have you know,” he says, pointing at Nicolo, who looks to be falling back into his drowsy state, “that, under usual circumstances, I am a very amusing man.” Nicolo chooses that moment for a particularly serendipitous nod, and Yusuf laughs again.

***

It’s not until weeks later, miles and miles down the road, that Yusuf sees the other man smile. It has felt slightly uneven, for Yusuf knows that most times whatever he himself is feeling is bright and evident on the front of his face. Nicolo, however, has stayed hidden behind himself, as much as one can when spending every moment with another person. As they have traveled, Yusuf has found himself growing more and more curious about the man who walks beside him. Their spoken exchanges depend heavily on Yusuf’s limited, but ever-expanding, Italian vocabulary, but the occasions where Nicolo attempts a phrase in Arabic are becoming much more common. Half of the words Nicolo utters seem to be in prayer; Yusuf supposes that, by the end of this journey, he will know more of the Lord’s Prayer than some baptized Catholics. He wonders how his own prayer has influenced Nicolo—the man has learned to wake Yusuf at dawn, at least. Still, Yusuf finds they have yet to share a smile.

That is, until the day when Yusuf, while clearing shrubbery away to make their camp, gets startled so extremely by a fleeing bird he falls backwards on his ass with no small force. The indignity of it stings, but he is distracted by what sounds like Nicolo…laughing.

It’s bright, like a bell tolling, and Yusuf turns to look at him before he fully knows what he’s doing. Nicolo’s face is overflowing with mirth, his eyes crinkled shut, and Yusuf feels it like a physical blow. He has the wild thought of _we have not ceased killing each other, then._

“Are you hurt?” Nicolo’s laughter morphs to concern when he sees Yusuf still frozen on the ground. Their shared language has gotten better, if still a little halting.

“Of course,” Yusuf says, in Nicolo’s tongue. “You just—laughed.”

Nicolo’s eyes go apologetic. “I didn’t mean to make fun—”

“No, no!” Yusuf says. “It was—good. To see you laugh.” He is instantly embarrassed by this, but apparently not as much as Nicolo, who turns a deep red and mumbles something that doesn’t reach Yusuf’s ear.

It turns out to be worth it, however, when a smile becomes a common thing to see on Nicolo’s face. Yusuf finds himself looking forward to these occurrences and giving a smile of his own. It is an exchange that suits them both.

***

As they near Cairo, the number of farms and homes they see gradually increases, until they are rarely the only travelers in sight. Yusuf knows they must look like a creature at odds with itself; a Christian and a Muslim soldier traveling together in peace. More than peace, the thing they have between them now feels like friendship, almost. Nicolo laughing at something Yusuf has mangled in Italian, a loaf of bread from Nicolo’s hand to Yusuf’s, it feels like building something. Then, of course, there are the dreams.

Yusuf can recognize now that the visions he had upon dying for the first time were not just a fleeting view of the final moments of his life, but a glimpse of the string tying him to this other man. They have occurred almost nightly since then, and Yusuf is beginning to question them less and welcome them more. They are without narrative, just flashes of Nicolo, the dry countryside they have been traveling through, the fires they sit around. Each time he wakes up, Yusuf feels as though he is on the brink of understanding something.

He nearly asks Nicolo if these dreams are a shared phenomenon, but he finds he’s afraid of the response. If they are, what will that mean? And if they are not, what will that?

Yusuf’s reverie is interrupted by a sudden hand on his arm, halting his steps. He looks to Nicolo, but the man’s eyes are focused elsewhere. Yusuf follows them to see a plume of smoke from behind the treetops. Now that he’s seen it, he can smell it in the air—heavy and stinking, already sinking into his hair and clothes.

“Fire,” Nicolo says. It’s a word Yusuf knows well from their travels together, but now it chills him to the bone. “We must go.”

At first, Yusuf assumes he means away from the smoke, but this notion is quickly dismissed as Nicolo hefts his pack to a better position on his back and begins to run towards it. After a split second, Yusuf follows.

When they arrive at the source, they find it is a small farmhouse, or what is left of one. The flames have completely consumed the walls and are now leaping onto the roof. The firelight combined with the dying light of evening cast everything into a ghoulish reflection.

Yusuf looks to see Nicolo crouched over what, at first glance, appears to be a bundle of clothing. As he steps closer, he realizes it’s a child, soot smeared across his face. His eyes are open, just barely, and he breathes out a word, something that sounds, horrifically, like _mama._

“Stay with him,” Nicolo says, shedding his pack and outer garments.

“And where will you be going—inside? You will surely choke, Nicolo,” Yusuf says, but can feel the futility of his words.

Sure enough, he’s graced with one of Nicolo’s slight smiles. “If you could not kill me, I do not think this fire has a chance,” he says and vanishes inside the building, leaving Yusuf outside with his heart in his throat.

He’s halfway to going after him when a cough from the boy below draws Yusuf’s attention back to him. He scrambles for his canteen and prays there’s water left inside as he tilts it towards the child’s mouth. Yusuf places a hand on his chest, listening to his breathing. It rattles, but is strong enough—with luck, he will live.

It’s almost painful, to sit outside the burning husk and not know what’s happening within it. Does Nicolo lie somewhere inside, dead? Or worse, trapped and dying over and over again, choking on smoke only to wake up and choke again? Perhaps it is due to fear of being left alone to a deathless existence, but Yusuf isn’t sure when his concern for Nicolo grew to such a size in his chest. Either way, it is there now, crushing him. His lips move in silent prayer.

It seems like hours before Nicolo emerges from the flames, holding a woman who can’t be any older than them in his arms. Yusuf watches, feeling anchored to the ground, as he stumbles past the threshold and down onto the dirt. The collapse spurs Yusuf back into motion, rushing to Nicolo and the woman’s side.

“Are you unharmed?” Yusuf asks, in such a hurry that he doesn’t bother with his clumsy Italian. Nicolo doesn’t speak, just points to the woman lying on the ground. He is coughing violently, body racked with loud hacks, but an even worse sight is the woman, whose chest barely moves. Yusuf isn’t quite sure what to do with either of them. He touches the woman’s forehead and almost withdraws his hand at the heat of it. He frantically wets his sleeve and lays it over her skin, hoping it will do anything to help.

After a moment, Nicolo’s cough subsides until the only sound in the air is the crackling of flames. The woman’s breath is too quiet to hear.

“You are unharmed?” Yusuf asks in Italian this time, wiping the woman’s face free of soot. He doesn’t look up at Nicolo.

“Yes,” Nicolo replies, and his voice is painful to listen to. He clears his throat. “I—I healed.”

So their gift lives on. Yusuf hangs his head, half in exhaustion, half in something that feels like relief.

He looks up at Nicolo at last and finds there is an incredible amount of blood matting his light hair, turning it black in the firelight. He reaches to touch it and Nicolo does not hiss or move away in pain when his hand makes contact, just looks a little bewildered. There is nothing beneath Yusuf’s fingers but whole skin and bone—the blood is the only thing out of place.

“We should stay,” Nicolo says, “to make sure these people are well.” Yusuf can’t do anything but nod.

***

Later, after they have tended to the mother and son as best they can, Yusuf and Nicolo sit wearily by the fire.

Nicolo is not especially talkative in the best of times, so Yusuf isn’t expecting it when he speaks. “Why does this keep happening to us?” His voice, like his posture, is tired. “Death occurs in every man, but these lives, second and third and fourth…I feel as though I’m—stealing them, Yusuf.”

“I do not know,” Yusuf said, shaking his head. “I promise you; I would tell you if I did.”

“At first,” Nicolo says, and laughs bitterly. “At first, I thought it a gift from God, that he was making me a weapon to—to cut down the enemy.”

“And I was revived to stop you,” Yusuf says, smiling with a twist. “I no longer think we are agents of God, just—men.”

Nicolo seems uncomforted, shaking his head and staring deep into the fire. “We are no longer just men,” he says. “When I joined the Crusaders, I—”

Yusuf waits a moment for him to finish, then prompts him. “What?”

“When I joined, I had a,” Nicolo waves one hand vaguely, “grand idea of what it would be, to be a soldier of God. We were told—to die in this holy war meant eternal life in heaven.” He shakes his head again. “ _Deus vult._ ”

“You destroyed a city to—what? To be forgiven?” Yusuf can’t keep the anger from his voice.

“Yes,” Nicolo says, bitterness painting his. “And my, my _cruelty_ was for nothing; there are no rewards for those who fail to die.”

Yusuf cannot keep himself from staring, anger boiling in his gut. “And _you_ suffer because of this? Men lie _dead_ because of you and your God,” he spits.

Yusuf doesn’t know he’s looking for a fight until Nicolo fails to give him one. He merely hangs his head further and…concedes. It’s not enough.

“No,” Yusuf says, and picks up his weapon as Nicolo looks up at him with wide eyes. “No, let’s try once more at this—this holy death. If I had known you _wanted_ to die, I would have put my back into it.”

“I—” Nicolo starts but is cut off when Yusuf’s blade passes inches from his chest. He scrambles for his sword. For a moment, Yusuf almost feels sorry for him, but it passes.

This fight feels clumsier than the last, as Yusuf fights not just with anger but with a great sadness for his city, his people, even for the man across from him. It’s terrible, to exchange blows with Nicolo. It’s terrible not to.

When he finally knocks away Nicolo’s sword, Yusuf does not immediately drive his own through the man’s chest. They both stand there for a long moment, breathing heavily. Their eyes are locked until Nicolo’s dart to the side to glance at the sleeping family and suddenly Yusuf feels the anger drain from his body so quickly he feels cold in its absence. He drops his scimitar.

“I cannot kill you again,” Yusuf says. “I suppose the gates of paradise will remain closed to me as well.”

Nicolo stares at him, seeming more shocked than he did when Yusuf began the fight. He seems to struggle for words. “I—” Nicolo starts, then blinks. His face settles into something Yusuf can’t quite read. “We will stay locked out together, then.” Yusuf laughs for the first time that evening, albeit bitterly.

“So we will.”

***

The decision to stop and help the mother and her child ends up delaying their travel to Cairo by a few weeks, as Yusuf and Nicolo reach the silent agreement that they cannot leave until they are both back on their feet. They boy recovers quickly and his first act after rushing to his mother’s side is to tell them of the nearby village where their family resides. He speaks in Arabic, leaving Yusuf to do most of the talking. It amuses him to picture the opposite, Nicolo speaking in serious tones with this solemn-faced boy. Yusuf finds himself wishing he could hear Italian in the way Nicolo would speak to someone with a native tongue, words tumbling over each other with a music Yusuf can only just make out.

Oddly enough, he is closer to this reality than he was before he almost killed Nicolo once more. Something about the fight seems to have loosened a thread in the man, and now his conversations with Yusuf have taken on an easier tone. He talks more, allowing Yusuf to pick up more of the patterns of his speech. It’s almost amazing, how quickly Yusuf finds himself learning Nicolo’s language, and he wonders if it would be this effortless with anyone else. Somehow, he thinks not.

When they are on the road again after they have made sure the pair is safe with their family, Yusuf is even more resolute in his attempts to learn Nicolo’s tongue.

“Nicolo, my friend, it is a beautiful evening, no?” Yusuf says, rolling the words on his tongue in what he hopes is a perfectly acceptable accent.

“You are not using that word correctly,” Nicolo admonishes with a slight smile. “You are saying beautiful, like how a person is beautiful.”

“Oh, and I cannot call the sky handsome?” Yusuf says, grinning as well. “I feel it may deserve it more than either of us sorry fools.”

“I suppose I cannot stop you,” Nicolo says. His eyes are alight with amusement and Yusuf suddenly knows his previous statement for the lie it is. He could call Nicolo handsome in every language he’s ever heard, and it would still not feel like enough. The knowledge settles like a rock in his stomach.

“Say something in Arabic, then, so I may mock you,” Yusuf says, eager to move the conversation along.

“We cannot all learn so quickly,” Nicolo says, but the ease that was present in their earlier sentences is gone, replaced with a solemnness Yusuf doesn’t know what to do with.

“Ach, jealous,” he says, and then carefully bumps his shoulder to Nicolo’s. “Come then, teach me what to call those birds, if you are too scared to make a mistake.”

Nicolo looks blankly at where Yusuf is pointing. For a moment, Yusuf worries he has somehow made a misstep, then, “they are—birds,” Nicolo says. “How am I to know what sort?”

Yusuf cannot help it; he tilts his head back and laughs so loud the birds in question startle and take flight. “Too much of your head is filled with the names of your saints—you do not know a lark when you see one, Nicolo?” he asks and looks to see Nicolo staring at him with an expression that is, for all Yusuf is learning, unreadable. “What?”

“Nothing,” Nicolo says, turning away. “A lark, then?” It’s in Arabic, because it must be, it’s the only version of the word Nicolo knows. He learned the name from Yusuf first and now it is a part of him, will be the first thing he thinks of if he ever sees one of the tiny creatures again. The thought brings Yusuf a warmth that the evening sun cannot provide.

“Yes,” he says. “A lark.”

***

The city of Cairo is bustling and hot, filled with people who seem to care very little about the odd pair that the two of them make. More attention is given to the fact that they have very little money—saving widows from their burning homes is not a lucrative task. Luckily, Yusuf has family who have friends who have relatives that are willing to offer them a place to live with only a few wayward glances in Nicolo’s direction.

It’s a few weeks after they have settled and found work that Yusuf asks the question that has been rolling around his mind since they arrived in the city. “So,” he says to Nicolo one evening. “When is your voyage back to Italy?”

Nicolo, for his part, looks surprised. “What do you mean?” he asks slowly. His Arabic has much improved since they reached Cairo, but his accent is still terrible. It usually makes Yusuf smile, but he is too confused by Nicolo’s reaction to be amused now.

“A thousand ships leave this harbor daily is what I mean, you could be back home within the week.” Yusuf tries not to pay any mind to how that sentence makes his gut clench. It clenches anyway.

“You—I don’t understand. When did I decide I am going back to Italy?”

“When did you decide you weren’t?” Yusuf asks, feeling a swell of emotions he can’t quite parse into separate names. The principal feeling, however, he knows. It is relief.

“Yusuf,” Nicolo starts, and pauses. “I will go if you want me to go,” he says, resolutely, “but—destiny has brought us together, and I do not want to spit in its face.”

“I suppose destiny is one name for it,” Yusuf says. “Another might be death.”

Nicolo rolls his eyes with a smile. “You are too dramatic.” Yusuf shrugs.

“So you won’t be going?”

“I will stay,” Nicolo says, his eyes serious, “as long as you will have me.”

“Well—you know I long to send you away, but who am I to spit in the face of destiny?” Yusuf says with a broad smile. The days when he would worry Nicolo will fail to understand the joke of it are long gone. Indeed, the other man tilts his head with a smile of his own.

As the weeks and months go by, they adjust to the ways of the city—the market, the people, even the mixed bag that is the currency—but they have yet to completely get used to the heavy heat.

“Perhaps we should both have gone to Italy after all,” Nicolo says one evening when the sun is making sweat bead on their skin. “There is always a cool breeze from the coast—you would enjoy the beaches, I think.”

“Do not think I do not know your game, priest,” Yusuf says, lying with one arm over his eyes. “You will not convert me even if you manage to take me directly to the basilica in Rome.”

“Ah, you’ve caught me out,” he hears Nicolo say. “I will find a way someday, infidel.”

Yusuf drops his arm so he can look up and grin at Nicolo, but it freezes on his face when his eyes find the man in question. Due to the heat, Nicolo has removed his tunic and sits at the window reading clothed in only his trousers. The sheen of sweat on his skin reflects the light streaming in between the curtains and Yusuf is hit in the stomach with every feeling he has been trying not to pay mind to. He has known, of course, that Nicolo is beautiful. It is impossible to ignore, especially now that his skin has darkened in the sun and his hair has curled in the heavy air. He sits in the window, looking every bit like an icon of one of his Christian saints, painted in gold—Yusuf swallows on a dry throat. It has been years, since he felt this—hunger, for another person, so acutely. It is worse, that it is Nicolo who is on the receiving end of his longing.

“What?” Nicolo says, startling Yusuf from his despair. “You know I did not mean it, yes?”

“What? Oh,” Yusuf says, struggling to follow the thread of conversation. “Of course not, you know you are incapable of convincing me to do anything.” A lie, of the most blatant sort. Yusuf has, just yesterday, spent an inordinate sum on pomegranates merely because of Nicolo’s face upon eating one for the first time. He needs no convincing.

Nicolo just snorts and turns back to his book, kindly not bringing up this fact. Yusuf feels his heart beating hard in his chest as he lies back down and tries to forget the realization he is currently fighting his way through.

It is just his luck, to heal from every wound only to be struck down again by something much worse. It would not be so bad if Yusuf was not completely aware that there is nothing to be done with it, this affection he is holding in his chest. The easy friendship he and Nicolo have at last reached cannot bear the weight of it, and Yusuf is unwilling to do anything that could put it in jeopardy. Thus, he is at an impasse with himself—unable to move towards Nicolo, unable to leave him behind.

He ventures another glance at Nicolo in the window and wonders how catastrophic it would be if Yusuf were to tell him or chance some sort of gesture that contained more than friendship. If he has learned anything about Nicolo, he knows that he would not be cruel. No, despite how Yusuf knew him within the first few hours of their meeting, he now recognizes that Nicolo is kind almost to a fault. Running into a burning home was apparently just foreshadowing of acts to come—Yusuf wonders if their gift has made Nicolo more reckless with his own life, or if he has always been this way. He pictures a young Nicolo—dodging carts in busy streets and falling out of trees—and smiles.

Even if telling him would likely reap little ill, Yusuf decides he will not burden Nicolo with a confession of affection he could not possibly return. Besides, a few months together is nothing to make any bets on; for all he knows, he will feel nothing but friendship for the man come autumn.

***

It’s been two years in Cairo when Nicolo begins to become restless and Yusuf finally accepts that it is love.

“I just feel that I am wasting this,” Nicolo gestures with both hands, “this _gift_ , you call it, living as we are.”

“How do you propose we spend it, then?” Yusuf says, trying to sound wary when he knows now would not hesitate to do anything Nicolo suggested.

“I am going to travel,” Nicolo says decisively. He looks prepared for an argument. “I will not ask you to come with me, but I cannot stand by and work in the shipyard when I could be doing so much—”

“You cannot,” Yusuf says, and watches Nicolo bristle. “Not without me by your side, that is, has this time together meant nothing to you?” Nicolo’s brow shoots up, and then his face breaks out into a smile so bright that Yusuf wants to fall to his knees and shield his face—a familiar feeling.

“You bastard,” Nicolo says. “You _bastard_ , of course it has, but I could not force you to accompany me.”

“You force me to do nothing, Nicolo, you never have.” _Save to love you, but I would choose that a thousand times again._

Nicolo’s grin has faded into a pleased expression that suits his face much better than the scowl that has graced it for the weeks leading up to this conversation. “I was worried to be away from you—I confess, after all this time, I’m not certain I know how to do that anymore.”

That is painful. “You are saying you would be lost without me,” Yusuf says, “I understand. Worry not, dear Nicolo, I would not release you into a world of misfortune without at least coming along to see it happen to you.”

“Hm,” Nicolo hums, with a false air of thoughtfulness. “Perhaps I will leave undetected in the night after all.” He grins when Yusuf laughs.

“Where shall we go?” Yusuf says. “I’ve heard the Italian breeze is very nice this time of year.”  
Nicolo rolls his eyes at the teasing. “You are not worthy of it. I do not have a specific area in mind, I just—we should be dying so other people do not.”

Selfless Nicolo, his heart is an open wound. Sometimes Yusuf wonders how he could have met this man on a battlefield, how deeply he must have longed for heaven to kill for it. Sometimes Yusuf even wonders if it is his doing—if he had not met Nicolo, would the man have gone on killing? It is a reality not even worth contemplating.

“We will go then,” he says. “You know, however, that we will have to sell all your precious books?”

“There will be others,” Nicolo says with an assuredness that Yusuf wants to cling to. “It is a good thing anyway; I had promised the one in Greek to our young neighbor upon my death, and—well.”

“Unlike you to make such an underhanded promise,” Yusuf says with a smile. They are still uncertain about the ramifications their resurrections have on the aging of their bodies—a few years is hardly a long enough time to tell if new wrinkles have formed around their eyes. Yusuf thinks that maybe he would not even be able to recognize aging in Nicolo any more than he would in himself. Any gradual shift is lost to the constancy with which they see each other—Nicolo’s face is sure to just become dearer to him as he learns more of it.

“No man knows when they are going to die, Yusuf,” Nicolo says. “My promise bears no less weight than that of anyone else.”

“No man knows, us least of all,” Yusuf says, and the words unintentionally throw a solemn air over the room. “Perhaps you are right—we should do something with these lives before we discover the answer to that question.”

And so, they become something like soldiers again—this time side by side.

***

The work is dangerous—that is the point of it, after all—but soon enough Yusuf discovers that it is comfortable too. They walk along caravans, hunt down gangs of thieves, speak with widows and children. At first, they remain in Egypt, but as the years and decades pass, they find themselves aboard creaking ships, crossing countless seas.

It is on the deck of one of these vessels that Yusuf is struck by the wild fantasy of abandoning life on land and taking completely to the sea. The salt air feels like it has scrubbed him clean, the gull’s cry sounds almost like music—he even welcomes the blinding hot sun as it dances off the waves.

That is, of course, to say nothing of how Nicolo wears their travels across the water. Sometimes, looking at him gazing across the sea, Yusuf is held still by his wanting. He can only hope it does not show on his face.

It has gotten easier over time to conceal it, to take the smiles and touches Nicolo gives freely and to find the things he does not elsewhere. Yusuf tries his best not to think of his friend during these exchanges, most frequently with women who he pays upon leaving their beds, but it is often difficult to keep Nicolo from his mind. His thoughts will be clear and then, suddenly, they are consumed by the flex of Nicolo’s hand on a rope, the outline of his thighs through his trousers, the upward curl of his mouth. On occasions like these, Yusuf must smile abashedly as the woman he has shared the evening with laughs at the speed with which he is on his way.

Nicolo does not seem to share these urges, though the priestly life he was living before Yusuf cut him down to start a new one could have some doing in that. Nicolo still lives like a monk in some ways—his plain dress, his nightly prayers—but he is quick to accept the world in others, especially when it comes to the rich food they encounter on their travels. What guilt Nicolo had about betraying the vows he took to the church seems to have faded with the years and deaths that have occurred since then, so Yusuf can only assume that he does not take a lover merely because he does not want to. It is good, that Yusuf not have to bear seeing him in the arms of another, but he is also unable to suggest they find solace in each other on their endless journey. Perhaps that is also a good thing—having Nicolo without holding his heart as well could very well kill Yusuf in earnest.

“Yusuf?”

Yusuf raises his head quickly from where it was resting on the wood of the ship to look over at Nicolo. “I’m sorry, I was—elsewhere, for a moment.”

“You are always dreaming,” Nicolo says, “even when your eyes are open. That is why I am here—to wake you.”

“You wake me only because you tire of watching the waves, you are jealous of my dreams,” Yusuf says, and something about the sentence brings a memory to the surface of his mind. “Do you remember, when we met?”

“No,” Nicolo says, his face arranged in an expression that is perfectly blank to those who do not know him. Yusuf sometimes wonders if he’s the only one who can be counted among that particular flock. “I do not recall. It must have been a terribly uneventful encounter.”

“Oh, you would not believe how boring,” Yusuf says, playing into the joke. “We did not even kill each other a dozen times.”

Nicolo hums. “Ah, no, now you must be lying to me; you look like a man who I would kill more than double that.” Yusuf breaks into a grin first, but Nicolo is close behind. He sobers as he remembers what he was about to ask.

“Truly, though, do you remember much about that day?”

Nicolo’s grin has also dropped as he says, “I try not to—the man I was before you is not someone I like to recall.”

“I do not blame you, priest,” Yusuf says, but Nicolo’s words brighten something in him. “Do you recall if you had—dreams?”

“Dreams?” Nicolo asks, brow furrowed. “Of what?”

Yusuf is glad for the heat that has already flushed his skin. “Of—the first time we fell, I dreamt of you.”

“Ah,” Nicolo says, expression clearing. “Dreams of destiny.” Yusuf raises an eyebrow but feels charmed. “Of course I dreamt of you.”

“Really?” Yusuf cannot tell if this is the answer he was hoping for.

“The first time, I was less confused about the new life than I was about the man I was seeing visions of upon waking,” Nicolo says, shaking his head. “You were nothing like what should have been inside my head.”

“Do you think I was thrilled to dream of a Christian?” Yusuf asks. “And to think, I had yet to even learn you were Italian.”

“You laugh now, but you will be in love when we arrive,” Nicolo says with his nose in the air. “And I will be waiting for an apology.”

“Waiting to assign me Ave Marias?”

“Not too many.”

There is a beat of quiet, where they listen to the sound of waves against the wood of the ship.

“Past that night,” Yusuf says, hesitant to reveal what he is about to, “did you have any others? Dreams, that is?”

Nicolo looks at Yusuf, his eyes squinted. Then he looks away, back over the water. “No.”

“Ah,” Yusuf says. What had his dreams meant, then? Had it been a message warning him, even then, of what he would feel for Nicolo?

“Did you?” Nicolo says, still not looking at Yusuf.

“No.” Yusuf is not entirely sure why he lies, but to tell the truth feels too close to the confession he will not make. He’s not even certain if the dreams he has now are the same sort that he did those years ago. Indeed, contrary to their first meeting, they now come infrequently and consist of more than mere flashes of the other man. Sometimes, they even seem to feature other people—two women, specifically. He is not as superstitious as Nicolo, but he wonders if they might be real, and like them. The thought is comforting, and Yusuf wishes these women well, if they live as he sees them.

“Do you,” Nicolo says, and halts. “Do you ever think about why? Why we were chosen for this?”

“I do not know if I would say we were chosen, Nicolo,” Yusuf says. “Nothing about this seems predetermined.”

“I know you think like that, but I cannot help but believe there was a purpose, some reason we must have met. Fate, destiny, whatever you call it.”

“Were we destined to kill each other as well?” Yusuf asks.

“Perhaps.” Nicolo looks contemplative. “Or perhaps we only lived because we were destined to know each other.”

“You are too romantic,” Yusuf says, his throat tight.

“Says the man who forgave me,” Nicolo says. His face is serious, his eyes look like they’re searching for something in Yusuf’s face. “I don’t thank you enough for that.”

“Ah, well, who could hate you, Nicolo?” Yusuf says it to be glib, but he means it as well. Christianity is still a force Yusuf regards with nothing even approaching geniality, but Nicolo is the kindest man Yusuf has ever known in spite of this.

“You could, with justice,” Nicolo says, and sighs. “Sometimes I feel I have two saviors.”

“Do you—I’m sorry,” Yusuf says with a grin, “do you compare me to your Jesus Christ? Know that I will not go so easily to a crucifixion—or a manger, for that matter.”

“The body of Yusuf Al-Kaysani, amen,” Nicolo says, his hands rising in a play at giving communion. “No, I merely mean that knowing you has made me a better man—almost a completely new one.”

Nicolo has said things like this before, things that Yusuf cannot respond genuinely to for fear that his heart will tumble out with the words. He is so earnest, his Nicolo, which only adds to the fear of telling him of the weight in Yusuf’s heart. If he were to lose this man and his sincere and serious eyes, Yusuf too would be lost.

“It was not too hard,” Yusuf says, shrugging it off. “When we met, you were a Crusader; there was not much I could have done to worsen you.”

“You could have died,” Nicolo says, simply.

“What an unsatisfying ending that would have been,” Yusuf says. Sometimes, he does think of it, dying—wonders if he longs for it, or if he will sometime in the future if their lives are extended. For now, he is content to live at Nicolo’s side. “Although, perhaps worth it, if I could have remained outside of Italy.”

“You are cruel,” Nicolo says, with an air of petulance that Yusuf secretly finds very funny. “And because of that, I will expound again on the places we are going to visit. I forgot to mention before, but there is this—do not make fun—there is a church I would like you to see.”

Yusuf laughs anyway.

***

The job they have taken in Italy is a simply one. Impressed with their work defending one of his trading ships, a wealthy merchant has hired them for the higher profile job of escorting his daughter as she travels down the coast to a man who has agreed to teach her what he knows of portrait painting. Yusuf privately thinks the entire endeavor is a waste; the art he’s seen from Italy is nothing near the quality he’s seen from painters from the far east. But he supposes it is none of his business how the rich spend their money, and besides, after meeting the girl at her father’s house, he finds she is a sweet thing he will be happy to ensure the safety of. She seems almost afraid of them at first, but after a few hours in their company she introduces herself as Adaleta, not quite looking either of them in the eye. He looks to Nicolo over her head to convey a sort of _ah, precious_ , and finds Nicolo already looking at him with a smile in his eye.

“Thank you, lady,” Yusuf says, with an over the top gracious bow. “We promise no harm will befall you on this journey.”

“That is usually what hired guards are meant for, yes,” she says, a little primly.

“Ah, the lady does not understand,” Yusuf says, looking to Nicolo with a smile. “I can say this with complete honesty: I would much rather he perish on the road than you.”

“Oh,” Adaleta says. She looks a bit nervous. “There’s no need for it to come to that, I don’t think.”

“If you do not believe me, I will kill him now, for your viewing pleasure,” Yusuf says, aiming a knife at Nicolo’s throat.

Adaleta’s eyes grow even more alarmed. “No! No, don’t do that, I believe you.”

“Do not worry, lady,” Nicolo says, rolling his eyes. “I would rather he die on the road as well and give me a moment of peace.”

“Kill me yourself, then!” Yusuf says.

“Ah, too much effort for the likes of you.”

Adaleta looks between them, brow drawn. “You two…are very strange,” she says slowly.

“Indeed,” Yusuf replies. “Would you care to discuss the best route?”

They set off within the week, Adaleta on a steed as they walk beside. Although shy at first, she becomes excited when she learns Nicolo has read the same book she has just completed—miraculously, something other than the Roman Catholic Bible. Yusuf is happy to take the rear and watch them speak—he has taken to carrying two packs so Nicolo is able to gesture freely with her, his hands moving in arcs. Watching them is a fulfillment of an idle thought he had so many years ago; Yusuf never quite imagined that when he heard Nicolo speak so freely and fluently, he himself would be able to understand every word.

Yusuf notes how carefree this Nicolo is—head thrown back to laugh at something Adaleta says—compared to the one he knew on the road all that time ago. His heart aches a little, with want of him, to have Nicolo and hold him close for as long as their extended lives will allow. For now, it is enough to catch his eye as he grins past Adaleta.

That night, in a small village inn, Adaleta stops Yusuf before he leaves her room. Nicolo is at whatever small bar or tavern exists in this town, attempting to confirm that their route is a good one with the local people.

“Yes, my lady?” Yusuf says, pausing in the doorway.

“Call me Adaleta,” she says. He waits as she fidgets for a moment. “You and Nicolo are—honorable men, yes?”

“Adaleta,” Yusuf says. “Nicolo is the most honorable man you will meet—as for me, well, I am good enough to stand in his company.”

“Good. I—that is good,” she says. “I am not so young or foolish to think there is no danger in our arrangement, you see, for a wealthy woman.”

“I did not think you either and I do not hold a grudge for your suspicions.” Yusuf searches for something to say that will bring her shoulders away from her ears. “If it puts you at ease, I have never even seen Nicolo look at a woman.”

“Oh.” Adaleta squints. “Really? But he is so—well.”

Yusuf snorts, knowing exactly what she means. “He was a priest, a long time ago. I do not know if he ever fully shook its hold.”

Adaleta hums thoughtfully, then shakes her head. “No, I did not see him pray, not even before we ate—even I have not been fully able to shake that reflex.”

“Ah,” Yusuf smiles, “that’s where you are wrong. He prays.”

“He does not! I sat not two feet from him,” she says, indignant, “and saw nothing approaching the sign of the cross.”

“And you never will—since I have known him, Nicolo has taken the parts of your Bible about praying in secret to heart.” Adaleta raises an eyebrow and Yusuf laughs. “I know, I know. But I think it is—well.” Dear, is the word that comes to mind. “It is Nicolo.”

“You are not like any men I have ever met,” she says with a smile. “I am happy to have you in my service.”

Their trip continues uneventfully for the next few days, stopping in towns and sometimes merely on the road, when Adaleta is seized with the inspiration to catch the moment on paper. Yusuf offers his visage after seeing the way she manages to capture the trees and earth and even the air, the flimsy quality it has blowing in off the coast. She is hesitant at first, waving him off with the apprehension that she has not learned the nuance of faces yet. However, with persuasion from both he and Nicolo, she puts her charcoal to the page.

The result is as charming as the rest of her: a likeness of Yusuf that looks off page with half a grin.

“Tell me my hair is not _that_ unruly,” Yusuf says, but in truth he loves it.

“On the contrary, she was very kind,” Nicolo says, looking between the Yusuf on page and the one in the flesh. He reaches up to tousle Yusuf’s hair further. “In reality, you look as if you’ve just crawled from the sea.”

“I shall drag you with me when I return to it,” Yusuf says, batting him away. “My lady, I hate to inform you of this, but this entire venture was a waste now that you’ve already produced your best possible work.”

“Ah, you would be right,” Adaleta says, a glint in her eye, “but I have not drawn _him_ yet.” 

The drawing truly is a masterpiece, at least to Yusuf. Never before has he seen himself so well captured, not even in the dirty glass of a mirror. Something about the look caught in his eye makes him sure it was drawn during a moment he was looking at Nicolo.

“May I have this?” Nicolo says, snapping Yusuf out of his thoughts.

“Of course,” Adaleta says. “I will clean it up and give it to you when we part ways—something to remember me by.”

“And me, is that not right, Nicolo?” Yusuf says, to tease him. “After I grow old and gray?”

“Perhaps,” Nicolo says simply. Yusuf is touched by this, that despite the fact they have seen each other each day for more than a decade, Nicolo would want to keep this moment of him.

“Would you like one?” Adaleta says to Yusuf. “Of him, that is? It seems only fair that you both remember each other.”

“Adaleta, I would like nothing more,” Yusuf says, and means it deeply.

***

When they are struck by bandits, at first it is how close they are to their destination that annoys Yusuf the most, but it quickly becomes the knife sticking out of his neck. He’s never asked Nicolo, but in his now broad experience, Yusuf has found that the pain of his injuries has stayed very sharp despite the years. He goes down gasping, the air gurgling in his destroyed throat. He manages to wrench the knife out so he can heal, but by doing so he can tell he has made the bleeding much worse. The moment between dying and death is surprisingly long, and Yusuf’s mind jumps from the pain of his spasming lungs to hoping Nicolo can handle these men on his own to a wild thought of wondering if this will be the last time, the final death. He hopes not. It seems cruel to leave Nicolo on his own.

Yusuf is gasping awake before he has realized he has died completely. The first thing he is aware of is the pale blue sky above him. Close on its heels is a weight on the sides of his face—hands, he discovers when reaching up his own. Yusuf knows he cannot actually tell from a brief touch, but he feels in his bones they are Nicolo’s and holds tight for just a moment.

“You do not have to go on so,” Yusuf starts in a teasing tone, but the words fall flat when he turns to see Nicolo’s face. He is pale, especially against the splatter of blood on his cheek, and his eyes contain something that strikes Yusuf dumb. He does not get the opportunity to look closer at it before he is—being embraced.

It is a bit awkward, from their positions on the ground, but Yusuf will not complain as long as Nicolo’s arms are around him. It is not the friendly lock of arms they occasionally exchange; no, this is clutching of a desperate sort.

“You were dead a very long time,” Nicolo says, answering Yusuf’s unasked question. His voice is low and close, and it is that which has Yusuf finally relaxing into his hold.

“Ah.” Yusuf reaches his hand upwards to thread his fingers through the hair at the nape of Nicolo’s neck. It is getting long; soon Nicolo will get annoyed and have it shorn. For now, though, Yusuf clutches. “You knew I would come back.”

“No,” Nicolo says. “No, I did not.”

Yusuf bites his tongue against a joke, something to ease the pain that was so evident on Nicolo’s face. He feels like he is stealing something, held close in Nicolo’s arms, so close to what he’s tried his best not to think about. He closes his eyes and breathes for a moment, and then jolts back.

“Where is—”

“Adaleta is fine,” Nicolo says in a reassuring tone, nodding to where she sits on her horse several meters away. “Your fall gave us ample warning to prepare for the attack.”

“But she saw me die,” Yusuf asks, remembering now her screams as he lay dying. “And now I am not.”

“Now you are not,” Nicolo repeats, almost to himself. He does something strange then, something Yusuf will think about for days to come: Nicolo closes his eyes tightly and presses their foreheads together for a beat of time that has Yusuf’s breath caught painfully in his lungs. When he withdraws, his face is still pinched together as Yusuf stares. “We will tell her together.”

“We will?” Yusuf says, but Nicolo is already standing and approaching her. Yusuf scrambles to his feet to follow, noting the bodies of several would-be thieves on the ground. He would be surprised, but he knows his Nicolo.

“Adaleta,” Nicolo begins. “I would like to apologize for the bloodshed you have just witnessed.”

“Oh, this? This was nothing,” she says, but her face is slightly green. “I have seen worse from the ladies back in my father’s house—if you will excuse me,” she says and then promptly vomits over the side of her horse.

Yusuf can feel his mouth twitching upward and turns to share a smile with Nicolo only to find him staring at Yusuf with a kind of blank pain that makes the grin drop from his lips. Nicolo looks away before he can say anything and Yusuf feels—off balance.

“You, you have some—” Adaleta starts, looking at Yusuf. She gestures towards his neck and he reaches up to feel the tackiness of the still warm blood. Ah.

“Worry not, my lady,” Yusuf says with more bravado than he feels. “I am unscathed.”

“But you weren’t,” she says, looking between them. “I mean, you were stabbed in the neck! I saw you bleed out, we both did.” Something crosses her face. “You know, I always did think it strange how you introduced yourselves—it would make more sense if you truly were immortal.”

“More sense than what?” Yusuf asks. He doesn’t quite like how she’s looking at them; there is something much too knowledgeable in her eyes.

“More sense than either of you being able to joke about the other dying, I mean,” Adaleta says, “I have never met two people who have cared for each other more.” Yusuf feels his heart leap into his throat.

“I hope we have earned your trust enough on this journey that you will not use this information against us,” Nicolo says. He is still not looking at Yusuf.

“I—no, I would never,” Adaleta says. “I have known you a short time, yes, but in that time, I have known you to be honorable men, and I had thought you saw the same quality in me.”

“We do, of course,” Yusuf says quickly, before the hurt can become more evident on her face. “But there are many who do not hold the same convictions as you do and if they learned of our,” he makes a vague gesture with one hand, “gift, they would not hesitate to drag us away in chains.” He glances to Nicolo, but he looks even paler than he did before.

Adaleta’s face, on the other hand, has cleared. “I see,” she says. “Do not worry—I care not to spread this story.”

“Thank you,” Yusuf says. “Know that either of us would die again to protect you.”“Oh, stop,” she says, rolling her eyes. “None of us will die again before we reach our destination—I decree it.”

“At your command,” Yusuf says.

It is concerning, how quiet Nicolo has remained. He is, to many, a serious man, but in the time they have spent with Adaleta he has loosened to what Yusuf privately thinks of as his more natural state: a gentle man with a sharp smile and a sharper love of the people around him.

The rest of the trip carries the same somber tone and Yusuf does not try to break it. Upon reaching the outskirts of the city Adaleta is to study in, he stops.

“It is better if you continue without me,” Yusuf says, gesturing to the blood he had not managed to clean from his clothing and hair. “I fear I now cut something of a frightening figure.”

Adaleta nods, and then before Yusuf can blink, she is down from her horse and wrapping him in a careful embrace.

“Here,” she says as she steps back, handing him a few rolled up parchments. “Your portrait—and his. It would be encouraging, to this artist, if these survived with you into another age.”

Yusuf smiles. “Of course. They are more valuable than my life.”

Adaleta huffs. “Well, I know that _now_ —it is much less charming to know you are telling the truth.” She turns to Nicolo, who helps her back on her horse. “Goodbye, Yusuf. Thank you for posing for me.”

Like that, she is gone into the city, with not so much as a backward glance. Yusuf wonders if he will miss her and finds the answer very evident: though their acquaintance was brief, he will. He unwraps the portraits to find the familiar portrait of himself alongside one of Nicolo that has Yusuf smiling. It is not as detailed as Yusuf’s, and he gets the impression that she was attempting to complete it without drawing Nicolo’s attention to the fact she was sketching him. The result is a very truthful representation of the man; a gaze that would look serious if you were not privy to the meaning of that specific position of his mouth. It is very good.

As he shuffles the papers, a third, smaller sheaf falls from them. When Yusuf picks it up, he finds it is nothing other than a small portrait of Adaleta herself. It is a bit more abstract than the others and Yusuf holds it with the strange impression that a sudden movement could somehow startle the lines away from each other into something that didn’t make sense. She is there. On the page, put there by her own hand. The proud, thick lines of her brow, the jut of her chin. Yusuf is glad for it, to keep something of her even as they part.

That evening, in the cheapest inn they can find, Yusuf finds the odd pallor from earlier still hanging in the air, no matter what he does to try and dispel it. Nicolo seems to be in a state, partitioning himself off to somewhere Yusuf cannot reach.

“Did you look at the portrait of yourself, Nicolo?” Yusuf says, trying once more to start conversation that would be easy, be this any other night. “The girl has real talent.”

“Indeed,” Nicolo says, not looking up from where he is cleaning his blade. Yusuf waits a moment but that seems to be all the response he gets. He sighs.

“I will stop bothering you now,” he says, turning on his side to snuff the candle at his bedside. “Wake me if you must.”

In the half dark of the room, Yusuf’s own breaths suddenly seem very loud. He closes his eyes and tries to lose himself between them with the hope that this strange skin will be shed by the morning.

Just as he is falling asleep, he hears a soft, “Yusuf.” For a moment, he is not entirely sure he did not dream it. Nonetheless, he opens his eyes to see Nicolo finally, finally looking at him. He looks—sad.

“What is the matter?” Yusuf asks, unsure.

“I—” Nicolo looks away again and Yusuf feels like screaming. “I think we should take a break, for a while.”

Yusuf feels his face go numb. “Ah. If that is truly what you want.” Nicolo nods. “Well—I can be gone in the morning, if you so wish it, or I suppose if you would like to be the one to leave—”

“Stop,” Nicolo says. “Are you—I did not mean it like that. I meant to say we should take leave of this—fighting, for a moment. Together.”

Yusuf feels his entire body relax. “Nicolo, you are a bastard.”

“Of course I would not want to be without you, you must know that by now.”

“I do, I do.” _But_ _you neither want to_ be _with me._

“Then we shall?” Nicolo says. “Retire for a time?”

“If you wish it, it shall be done,” Yusuf says, and watches as Nicolo swallows something down. There is something occurring in his mind that Yusuf is not privy to, and such an idea upsets him in no small way. At least, a trip away will be good for understanding what has gone wrong.

They end up on an island off of Sicily. It is a trade port, under the command of the Catholic Church with the shadow of recent Islamic rule evident in the architecture and speech. Indeed, the language itself is in the process of becoming something new, a mix of the people and cultures who had taken up residence there.

The voyage to the island is quiet, despite the rowdy ship of sailors they have caught a ride on. Yusuf spends much of his time alone above deck, closing his eyes to the warm summer sun and trying not to think about Nicolo’s strange behavior.

For himself, Nicolo has been slightly more approachable since they decided to sojourn away to the island, but their easy camaraderie has not been fully reinstated. Yusuf is happy to leave him to his thoughts, as long as Nicolo eventually returns to him.

After a few days on the shore, Yusuf still stands alone. He is growing frustrated—Nicolo is gone when he wakes and floating in the blue water is much less enjoyable when Yusuf must do it alone. Nicolo only appears in the evening, carrying bread or fish from the nearby town market. They eat, and Yusuf clings to it as the last semblance of normalcy between them. At last, Nicolo is beside him, to talk and laugh with—then he is gone again in the morning.

It is a shame, that Nicolo is not around more, for the sun and salt treat him well. Yusuf often finds himself lost to gazing at the tanned skin that is just visible under his white tunic, to the golden hair on Nicolo’s arms and chest. He knows it is not right of him to cast Nicolo in this unwanted light, but he cannot exactly find it within him to stop, especially when Yusuf is missing him so.

It is one of these nights, good food and candlelight turning Yusuf’s vision pleasantly hazy. He is looking again at the drawings Adaleta left them. He has taken to doing so, and it is still so strange to see his own likeness peer up from the page. He especially likes to look at the image of the artist herself, to examine how she thought to capture herself in such scant lines. He is about to ask Nicolo about buying charcoal for himself to try his hand at the craft—he has longer than most to perfect it, after all—when Nicolo beats him to speech.

“We could go back.” Yusuf’s head jolts up to look at him, but Nicolo is still staring resolutely at his book.

“What?” Yusuf says.

“If you miss her so,” Nicolo says, his eyes unmoving on the page, “we could go back to find her.”

“Oh,” Yusuf says. “No, Nicolo, I do not tire of your company so quickly. I was merely admiring her method—do you think me capable of making something so beautiful?”

Nicolo ignores the question. “Yusuf, do not attempt to lie to me,” he says, leaving Yusuf bewildered. “I know you; I know you to—fall in love very easily. I know when there is longing in your eyes.”

Yusuf feels outside his body—is this true? It spells out terrible implications if it is. “You—know, then?” It is out his lips before he can think about it, but the true death blow is Nicolo’s nod.

“So you are,” he says. He has still not once looked Yusuf in the eye. “You are in love with her.”

“Nicolo,” Yusuf says, seized with helpless anger. He wants this strangeness, this carefulness around each other to end. If he must do so by falling on the sword himself, then he will. “Nicolo, that is not—you have driven me to this, I hope you understand,” he says, pointing to Nicolo and crossing the room sit beside him. When he covers Nicolo’s hands with his own, the man’s eyes go wide and at long last meet Yusuf’s. At any other time, his startled expression would make Yusuf smile, but now he can only swallow down fear.

“What are you—” Nicolo starts, but Yusuf has started, and now he must finish.

“You have been acting strange lately,” Yusuf says. “Ever since I—died, on our last job. Though I came back, I almost feel as though you did not.” He squeezes their hands when Nicolo starts to look away again. “I cannot live if you do not come back, Nicolo.”

“And you think I can?” Nicolo says, notes of anger creeping into his voice. “You were not there to witness how long it took you to rise, Yusuf, I swear I almost died myself.”

Yusuf’s heart aches for a moment, for how much he loves the man in front of him and the feeling reminds him again of what he must now do. Nicolo is a kind man, but he will be relieved when Yusuf ends this conversation by announcing he will take some time away, alone.

“Nicolo, you do not grasp my meaning—I did not die.” He takes a breath. “And if you do not come back to me, I may live on still, but my soul will not be in it—it will be with you.”

Nicolo’s brow just furrows further. “I—that does not clarify your intent as much as you seem to think it does.”

“You wanted to know if I am in love with her?” He laughs a little when he feels Nicolo’s hands tense beneath his own. “You say you can see the longing in my eyes, and perhaps you can, I feel it plays on the front of my face clear for all to see.”

“Yusuf,” Nicolo says, his voice strangled. “You must see that this is very cruel.”

Yusuf’s heart thumps. “I am sorry, truly, but I must finish.”

“I would prefer if you did not,” Nicolo says, attempting to withdraw his hands with a panicked look in his eye. It is painful, to let him go, but Yusuf will not cling where he is not wanted.

“Is it truly that difficult to hear?” he says, incredulous. “I do not want to be selfish, but I cannot help but think that of the two of us, I am the one on a ledge.”

“I wish I could take this with grace,” Nicolo says, shaking his head. “Yusuf, I swear I am trying—”

“Nicolo.” He looks at Yusuf, pain in his eyes. “Allow me to finish. Please.” The man nods, slowly. “I do not know how long it has been—years, decades perhaps—since I realized,” he says, shaking his head ruefully, “that I—I am in love with you, Nicolo, so completely that I would lose less of myself if I were to part with my right arm than if I were to leave you behind.”

“What?” Nicolo says, and it’s barely audible.

“I know,” Yusuf says. “At the risk of sounding like one of those terrible poets you secretly adore, when we met, you struck my heart in more ways than one.” Now he is the one unable to meet Nicolo’s eyes, twirling the ring on his left hand. He head snaps up, however, when he feels Nicolo’s hand, shaking badly, on the side of his face.

“Forgive me,” Nicolo says to Yusuf’s questioning look and then—there are soft lips on his.

The shock of it is enough that Yusuf almost reels back and indeed, he is still for perhaps a moment too long, as before he knows it, Nicolo is drawing back. He only gets so far before Yusuf’s mind returns to him and he inhales sharply, grasps Nicolo’s face at both sides, and kisses him as deeply as he is able.

Nicolo makes a soft noise, but it is soon lost between their mouths. It is a little clumsy at first, what with the ferocity that Yusuf has brought their mouths together, but it soon shifts into something slow and sweet that has Yusuf’s breath catching in his throat.

“Damn you,” Yusuf says when they break apart slightly. “Where did you learn to kiss like that?”

“I—” Nicolo’s eyes are blown black. “I do not know—would you care to stop so I can recall?”

Yusuf laughs and draws him back in. “No need to make threats, my Nicolo,” he says, laughing more when Nicolo shudders slightly at his words. “You like the idea of threatening me?”

“I like the idea of being yours,” Nicolo says, and kisses him again. Yusuf feels as though he is overflowing. He jumps when he feels Nicolo’s hand underneath his tunic. “What, now you are shy?”

“No, no,” Yusuf says, clasping his hand over Nicolo’s when he starts to withdraw it. “I have just—thought of this, for so long.” Nicolo hums into the junction of Yusuf’s jaw and throat and he is lost again.

“Yusuf,” Nicolo says some time later, his hair tousled and his mouth a deep red. “Yusuf.” Yusuf makes a questioning sound from where he has attached himself to Nicolo’s neck. He is determined to leave a mark despite Nicolo’s rapid healing, but he has not succeeded yet. “Yusuf, I—let me see your face.”

“Hm?” Yusuf says, reluctantly leaving his work unfinished. “Miss me so soon?”

“Yes,” Nicolo says, and draws him back in briefly to kiss Yusuf’s lips, cheeks, even his forehead, lingering. Yusuf feels charmed. “But I am indebted to you; before we continue, you must have no doubt in your mind that I am in love with you—so deeply it was almost difficult to be in your presence.”

“Oh Nicolo,” Yusuf says, fond. “I know that.”

“You do?”

“I know you enough to know that you would not kiss me so if you were not in love with me,” Yusuf says a grin breaking out before he can speak all of the words.

Nicolo rests his forehead on Yusuf’s collarbone and Yusuf takes the opportunity to run his palm up and down where it has found its way under Nicolo’s tunic. “If you knew,” Nicolo says, voice muffled, “why did you not say anything?”

“I knew only when you leapt at me—Nicolo, I have never seen you take up with another person,” Yusuf says. “I was prepared to confess my embarrassing love for you and flee into the night.” He feels Nicolo’s hands tighten on his waist and smiles. “That is no longer a danger, habibi.”

“How could I think to be with anyone else?” Nicolo says. “You feel like the only person I can see and I—I am lost to you completely.”

Suddenly, it not enough that Yusuf merely be touching Nicolo; he wants to hold him, he wants them to possess the same space, he wants to reach his hands inside Nicolo’s chest and gently cup his beating heart. Yusuf settles for kissing him again, pressing his palm firmly to Nicolo’s lower back in lieu of his more abstract desires.

Nicolo shifts against him until he is almost completely in Yusuf’s lap, which lights the whole affair on a hazy kind of fire in Yusuf’s mind. This close, he can feel nothing but Nicolo, and of what he can feel of Nicolo, he is made confident enough to take things further.

Indeed, when Yusuf brings a hand down between them, Nicolo gasps into his mouth.

“Is this—are you—?” Yusuf says, unsure how to finish his sentence but knowing Nicolo will catch his meaning.

“Yes, yes, please, Yusuf,” Nicolo says, arching into his touch. “Do not stop.”

As if Yusuf could if he wanted to—he presses Nicolo close to him with the hand that remains on his back and together they reach a kind of rhythm.

It is wholly unpracticed and haphazard, and yet Yusuf does not care—it is Nicolo, at last. Nicolo is emitting little whines with each particularly precise movement, and Yusuf chases them eagerly, swallowing them in open-mouth kisses.

“Nicolo, Nicolo,” Yusuf says after it has been minutes or hours or days—his mind has long abandoned him. “I never—when I turned to others for this I—it was you I thought of, each time. Your hands, your eyes, your—oh—your _mouth_.”

On top of him, Nicolo lets out a groan Yusuf can feel rumbling from his chest and recaptures his mouth in a bruising kiss as he comes shuddering apart. After feeling Nicolo against him, Yusuf is not far behind.

They sit for a moment, breathing together with their foreheads pressed. Yusuf cannot help the smile that spreads across his face. Nicolo tugs at his hair when he notices. “What are you laughing at?”

“No, no,” Yusuf says. “I’m just—you do not understand how long I have hoped for this, to have you in my arms, I—” His hands go to Nicolo’s face again, which has adopted a tender expression. “I believe I finally know why we will not die.”

Nicolo smiles, shaking his head. “And I cannot believe I have fallen for such a romantic—you must not repeat this in front of anyone else.”

“Ah, but may I for you?”

Nicolo hums, still smiling. “Just for me, I think.”

The next morning, Yusuf wakes up to find Nicolo still snug in his arms. He smiles into his neck and listens to their hearts beating as one.

**Author's Note:**

> th-th-th-that's all folks thank you for reading! I've been bouncing around the idea of like a post-movie epilogue for this so let me know if I should pump out like 3k of that
> 
> and again, sorry about the utter disregard for historical accuracy


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